Bridget Jones's Diary

Shazzer and I are going to have a magic mushroom omelette for breakfast ...

Friday 9 August Koh Samui island, Thailand

8st 7 (not possible to actually weigh self so can decide on weight according to choice - excellent advantage of travel); cigarettes 10; alcohol units 0 (fat chance with Shaz being so Draconian).

Have arrived at v. idyllic hippie beach. Unfortunately, however, Shazzer has developed an irrational aversion to "Boys Who Have Huts Near One", with the result that even though we have not yet been here 18 hours we have had to move huts three times. The huts are made of bamboo on stilts with balconies overlooking the sea and the balconies of the other huts, some of which, alas, in Shazzer's eyes, have boys in who look over at us. The first time it was fair enough as after three minutes the boys came over and tried to sell us something which was either heroin, opium or fudge.

Then we moved to a new hut-hotel where the boys in the next hut looked v. clean-cut in manner of biochemists or similar. Unfortunately, however, the biochemists came over and told us someone had hanged himself in our hut three weeks ago, at which Shazzer insisted we leave. By this time it was pitch black. The biochemists had offered to help with our bags but Shaz would have none of it and we had to tramp along the beach with rucksacks for ages. The upshot of it was, having travelled about 20,000 miles to wake up by the sea, we ended up in a hut overlooking the back of a restaurant and a ditch. So now we have to go up and down the beach looking for another hut which is on the sea but does not have the wrong sort of boys near it or hanging karma. Bloody Shazzer.

11.30pm: Argor es wor blurry brill in Ganja restaurant, Shazz blurry fantastic. Bessfren.

Sunday 11 August

8st 0 (marvellous, in spite of being imaginary) cigarettes 0 (vg); alcohol units 0; magic mushrooms 12 (mmmmmm).

9am: Shazzer and I are going to have a magic mushroom omelette for breakfast. Shaz is normally strictly against classified substances but maintains magic mushrooms are not drugs but natural and will provide a gateway to our spiritual epiphany. V excited.

10am: I am beautiful in a striking, exotic way, beautiful and part of all colours. When you lie on the sand and look at the sky through my Army hat, pinpricks of light shine through and it is the most beautiful, beautiful, precious thing in imagery. Shazzer is beautiful. I will take my hat into the sea so the beauty of the sea will combine with the precious pinpricks of light like jewels.

5pm: In Ganja restaurant on own. Oh God. Shazzer is not speaking to me. After the magic mushroom omelette, nothing happened initially, but on the way back to our hut everything suddenly began to seem most amusing and I unfortunately began to giggle. Shaz, however, did not seem to be joining in the joke. On arrival at our latest hut I decided to put my hammock up using thin string which broke so I landed on the sand. This seemed at the time so very amusing I immediately wanted to do it again, and it now appears I did it repeatedly for 45 minutes finding the amusingness of the proceedings undiminished by repetition. Eventually I decided to go into the hut to get Sharon to join in, but she was lying on the bed moaning, "I'm ugly, ugly, ugly, and stupid." Alarmed, I hurried towards her to cheer her up. On the way, however, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and had never seen a more beautiful or entrancing creature in my whole life. Shaz said for the next 40 minutes I kept trying to cheer her up but becoming distracted by the sight of myself in the mirror, striking poses and asking her to admire me, while she was suffering a total trauma believing her face and body to be horribly deformed. I went off to get her some food and returned giggling with a banana and bloody mary telling her the waitress in the restaurant had a lampshade on her head, before returning to my station at the mirror. Then I lay on the beach for two- and-a-half hours staring up at my Army hat and waving my fingers softly in the air while she contemplated suicide.

I was having the best time of my life then suddenly it was as if a switch had been turned off. I went back into the hut and instead of the beautiful fairy in the mirror it was just me, bright red and sweating in the face, one side of my hair plastered down to my head and the other side sticking out in peaks and horns, and Shaz on the bed looking at me with the expression of an axe murderer, and now she is ignoring me. V sad and ashamed of my behaviour but it was not me it was the mushrooms. Maybe if I go back to the hut and talk about spiritual epiphanies she will forgive me.

6.15pm: Oh my God. Could not find her in the hut, so came out on the balcony and looked around. Worryingly the frightening Swedish girls next door seemed to have been replaced by a Boy Who Has Huts Near One who, on closer inspection turned out to be the Harrison Ford lookalike who Sharon had sat next to on the aeroplane and I had snogged on the terrace of the Oriental hotel. As I watched he turned round and smiled at someone coming out of his hut. It was bloody Shazzer.

Friday 16 August

8st 2; cigarettes 27; alcohol units 5.

8pm: Last night of holiday. We have had a fantastic time though not a spiritual epiphany which I am actually rather relieved about. Shaz is a bit heartbroken because she had a sort of affair with the romantic stranger, who turned out to be called Jed, but he left this morning to go back to Bangkok. I was a bit sad that he chose her not me but tried to be pleased for her as it is good that at least one of us had a romance.

11.30pm: Oh my bloody God and f***. Sharon and I have just got back to our hut to find the lock was broken and our rucksacks have been stolen. Fortunately we had our passports and not all our stuff was in the bags but our air tickets and travellers' cheques have gone. My credit card doesn't work at the moment and Shaz has not brought hers as she did not trust herself in Bangkok. We only have $100 between us and the flight to London from Bangkok is tomorrow and we are hundreds of miles away on an island. Sharon is crying and I keep trying to cheer her up to little effect. Cannot help imagining self in film Thelma and Louise when Thelma sleeps with a hitch-hiker who steals all their money and Geena Davies is saying it's all right and Susan Sarandon is crying and saying, "It is not all right. Thelma it is definitely not all right." Even to fly to Bangkok in time for the plane will cost us $200, and then who knows if they would believe us at Bangkok airport or whether we could ... Oh God. Must keep head and spirits up. Just suggested to Shazzer that we go back to the Ganja Restaurant and have a couple of bloody marys and sleep on it and she went mental. The trouble is part of me is frantic and part of me thinks it is brilliant to have a crisis and adventure and it is such a change from worrying about the circumference of my thighs. Think I will just sneak out and get the bloody marys anyway. Might as well cheer ourselves up and get some sleep. Can't do anything about it till the morning short of going to a bar and doing exotic dances with ping pong balls for cash and I don't think we would stand up to the competition somehow.

1am: Hurrah Shazzan I are gon to live in Koh Samui like hippies off bananas sell shells on the beach. Argor. Is blurry spiritual epiphany. Blurry brillian. Nothing but ourselves to rely on. V spiritual.

Saturday 17 August

7am: Hmm. Shaz is still asleep which I am glad about as she seems to be taking things rather hard. This, I feel, is an opportunity to test our self-reliance. All we need to do is buy air tickets from here to Bangkok and then ... Oh God. Where to buy air tickets? How? With what? I know. Am going to go to the big hotel and inquire at reception as to what facilities are available to deal with a crisis. For example I could ring the travellers' cheque company. But then we'll never get the refund in time. Anyway. No point feeling sorry for self. Might as well get up and start proceedings.

9am: Well, you see. As long as you keep your spirits up something always comes along to get you out of a hole. Who should I bump into in the hotel foyer but Jed! He said his plane to Bangkok had been full so he'd come back last night and checked into the hotel. (Think Shaz might be a bit upset he didn't come and find her, but still. Maybe he didn't know where we were. Or maybe he thought we'd already gone or ... look, I am not going to start obsessing on behalf of Sharon.)

Anyway, Jed was really sympathetic, though did say we should never have left anything valuable in the hut, even if it was padlocked. He gave me a bit of a lecture (bloody sexy, sort of father/priest figure) then said we didn't have a hope in hell of getting to Bangkok in time for the flight, as all the flights from here today were full, but if we promised to pay him back when we got to England he would get us tickets on his credit card for Sunday or Monday. He is a dream god.

Sunday 18 August, flight from Koh Samui to Bangkok

Cannot stop thinking about Jed. Why don't they make men like that in England? Men who are kind and constant and there for you in a crisis? He even gave us one of his bags to put our stuff in that wasn't nicked and all his little shampoos and soaps from the hotel. Shaz is happy because she has his address and is going to contact him in England. In fact, to be perfectly honest about it, Shazzer is smug to the point of insufferability. Why am I always the unlucky one? Still, maybe it will work out with me and Mark Darcy.

11pm: Bangkok airport

A terrible nightmare seems to be happening. Blood all seems to be racing through my head and I can hardly see. When I put Jed's bag through the X-ray machine the airline officials all started jabbering and then a woman came and took me and the bag away to a separate room. They emptied the bag then took a knife and slashed open the lining and inside was a polythene bag full of white powder. And then ... Oh God oh God. Someone help me.